Dimensions in Actuly, explained.
Dimensions let you slice the profit and loss any way the business is really run: by department, region, event, product or nominal code. This guide covers where they come from, how to set them up, and how to use them in reports and forecasts.
| Dimension | Enabled | Primary |
|---|---|---|
| Business Units | ||
| Events | ||
| Departments | ||
| GL Lines | ||
| Split Dimensions |
The Reporting Dimensions page, under a company's settings. Riverside FC is a made-up football club used throughout this guide.
1. What are dimensions
A dimension is a way of slicing the P&L.
Each line of the profit and loss can be broken into child rows, one per value of a dimension. The values add up to the line.
Think of a dimension as a question you can ask of every line. "Which department?" is a dimension called Departments, with values like Ground, Commercial and Academy. "Which event?" is a dimension called Events, with one value per fixture or concert. Under Matchday income you then see a row per event, and under Staff costs a row per department.
Every company has a built-in dimension called Business Units. On top of that a company can have as many as it needs. Values can be nested (a cup run under Cup ties), reordered by dragging, renamed, and archived without losing history. The order you set on the Reporting Dimensions page is the order reports use by default. A Report Format can reorder the Units under any one line, as the Performance guide explains.
Any part of a line's figures that was never tagged to a value shows as an Uncategorised row at the bottom, so the rows still add up to the line. Where a parent value carries amounts of its own, as well as its children, a "(directly tagged)" row holds that amount for the same reason.
Dimensions apply to the profit and loss only. The Balance Sheet and Cash Flow always show totals.
Staff costs broken down by the Departments dimension. The Uncategorised row holds whatever was never tagged.
Where dimensions come from
Actuly reads whatever the accounting system already tags. Nothing is retyped.
XXero
Xero tracking categories. Pick up to two in the Xero setup wizard and each becomes a dimension, with its tracking options as the values. Xero's options are flat, so there is no nesting. Renames in Xero flow through on the next sync, and a new category is flagged for review.
Why two: Xero's split P&L report takes at most two categories.QQuickBooks
QuickBooks Classes and Locations. Pick either or both and each becomes a dimension. Sub-classes keep their nesting as parent and child values.
A QuickBooks plan without Classes or Locations has nothing to adopt.FFreeAgent
FreeAgent has no tracking of any kind, so a FreeAgent company starts with just its empty Business Units dimension. To split anything, assign Units at the chart of accounts (section 4) or create a GL Lines dimension.
⇩Sage, Intacct, NetSuite
Exported and brought in through the Trial Balance import. The file can be month-end balances or every ledger transaction, which Actuly adds up into monthly balances. Create the dimensions first: each tag column in the file then maps to its "Dimension: Name", with an optional ID column so renames never create duplicates, and the import creates any new values it finds. See Importing from a file.
Reporting dimensions
Your Xero organisation uses tracking categories. Choose up to two to break your reports down by these tracking categories. Splits apply to profit and loss accounts only - balance sheet accounts always show as totals.
The Xero wizard. Two categories are already chosen, so the third is greyed out.
GL codes as a dimension
Any reporting line can be split by the nominal codes beneath it, across all history, with nothing to tag.
Press Create GL Lines dimension on the Reporting Dimensions page and Actuly builds a dimension called GL Lines with one value per account mapped to a P&L or Balance Sheet line (archived accounts are left out), named by code and title, such as "4010 - Matchday tickets". Because every trial balance row already knows its account, the split works for every month you have ever loaded. No re-import, no tagging.
It behaves like any other dimension: enable it, make it primary, use it in Split Dimensions, forecast on it, filter by it. The values are read-only because their names come from the chart of accounts. Update GL Lines picks up new accounts, renames and renumbers, and archives accounts that have gone.
A common use: Overheads broken down by Departments for most lines, but Premises broken down by GL Lines so rent, rates and utilities show separately. That is Split Dimensions, in the next section.
GL Lines: one value per account, so Premises shows its four nominal codes.
2. Standard and Split
One dimension for the whole P&L, or a different one under each line.
Most companies pick one primary dimension and every line breaks down by it. Some need more than that.
Standard. In the Company dimension settings table, tick the dimensions you want available and choose one as Primary. The primary is what the company's standard reports, dashboard and rolling forecast are built on, so every line in the P&L breaks down by it. For most companies that is Departments, Regions or Products, and that is the end of the story.
Split. Riverside FC runs two very different things. Matchday income and matchday costs are really about events: this fixture, that cup tie, the summer concert. Overheads are about departments: Ground, Commercial, Academy. Neither dimension makes sense across the whole P&L. With Split Dimensions switched on, each reporting line can be given its own dimension, and the P&L shows events under the matchday lines and departments under the overhead lines, in one report.
Split Dimensions. Matchday income breaks down by Events, Staff costs by Departments, Premises by GL Lines. The small tags are added here to show which dimension each line uses.
Setting up Split Dimensions
- On the Reporting Dimensions page, tick Split Dimensions and choose a Default dimension. Any line you do not assign uses the default, so pick the one most lines want. For Riverside FC that is Departments.
- On the Reporting Lines page a Dimension column appears, with a dropdown per line. Set Matchday income and Matchday costs to Events, and Premises to GL Lines. Leave everything else on Default.
- Optionally make Split Dimensions the primary view. An italic "Split Dimensions" row appears in the Primary column once the toggle is on and two or more dimensions are enabled. The company's standard reports then show the split breakdown without having to pick it.
| Description | Category | Order | Dimension |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matchday income | Sales | 10 | Events |
| Commercial income | Sales | 20 | Default |
| Matchday costs | Cost of Sales | 30 | Events |
| Staff costs | Staff Costs | 40 | Default |
| Premises | Premises | 50 | GL Lines |
| Travel | Travel & Entertainment | 60 | Default |
The Dimension column on the Reporting Lines page. "Default" means the split default, Departments here.
Under Gross Profit, one group per dimension. Each group only adds up its own dimension's lines.
3. The Dimensions view
Break the data down any way you like.
The Dimensions tab in Financial History lets you pick any dimension, turn the units into columns, cross dimensions, and filter to the units you care about. Performance vs Plan has a simpler version.
The standard P&L tab always shows the primary dimension. The Dimensions tab, last in the row of sub-tabs, is where you look at everything else. In Financial History it appears as soon as the company has one enabled dimension. In Performance vs Plan it needs two.
Break down by chooses the dimension for the rows under each line, or Split Dimensions. Columns changes the shape of the table. Pick a dimension and each of its units becomes a column, with a Total on the end, so one month of the P&L reads across by department. Pick All Dimensions and you get the matrix: one column for every combination of the units ticked in Filter, crossed across the dimensions, such as Harbour Town in Commercial, up to 100 columns. With one dimension that is simply a column per unit. In those two layouts the period picker is replaced by a Monthly, YTD or TTM choice and a single month. Under Split Dimensions, Columns and Filter are not offered.
Filter narrows the units. Tick a unit to include everything beneath it. Within one dimension ticks are "any of these"; across dimensions they combine, so Events: League Cup round 3 plus Departments: Commercial shows the cup tie's commercial activity only. Uncategorised and "(directly tagged)" can be ticked like any unit.
Click a unit row to open its line window: the trend, this month against last month and last year, and a chart.
Performance vs Plan has a Dimensions tab too, but simpler. It has Break down by and a Compare to dropdown offering last year and every budget or revised forecast built on the dimension you are looking at. There is no Columns setting, and Filter appears only when Compare to is Last year, because a plan has no figures for the other dimensions.
Columns set to Departments: one column per department for the year to date.
The Filter panel. Ticking Cup ties includes everything beneath it, starting with its own directly tagged amounts.
4. No dimension data?
Assign Units at the chart of accounts.
When the accounting system carries no tags, point whole accounts at a dimension value instead.
A FreeAgent company, a plain Sage export or a manually loaded trial balance has nothing tagged. But the chart of accounts often already encodes the split: a separate wages account per department, a separate sales account per shop. In that case you can assign each account to a value.
First create the values on the Reporting Dimensions page, under Business Units or a dimension you add. Then open an account in the Chart of Accounts and set its Unit field. The dropdown offers every value from every dimension, labelled dimension first, such as "Departments › Ground". The account's whole balance is then treated as tagged to that value, for every month, past and future.
A chart of accounts assignment wins over any tags that arrive on that account from a provider or an import, so it is also a way to correct an account that is tagged wrongly at source. Xero and QuickBooks chart syncs leave the assignment alone.
Chart of Accounts Details
✕The Unit field on a chart of accounts entry. Every value of every dimension is offered.
5. Forecasting by dimension
Forecast each line on the dimension it is set to.
A line with units beneath it is forecast unit by unit, so the budget is built where the business is run.
- When you create a budget, Forecast on asks which dimension to build it against: the primary, any other enabled dimension, or Split Dimensions. Budgets on different dimensions can sit side by side, and you can keep as many versions as you need.
- Each unit is a forecast leaf with its own method. Riverside v Harbour Town can be "same as last year", the Summer concert typed in by hand, Ground staff costs "prior year plus 2%". The line is their sum.
- The method on a line that passes through to its units applies to every unit that has no method of its own, so one setting covers a whole department list.
- Uncategorised forecasts like any other unit, so the units still add up to the line in the forecast months.
- Only a budget on the primary dimension can be adopted, because that is what Performance vs Plan measures against. The star is greyed out on the others, with a tooltip saying so. When Split Dimensions is the primary, split budgets are the adoptable ones.
- Changing the primary dimension when forecasts exist shows a Change primary dimension? dialog: the rolling forecast is rebuilt against the new primary, and existing budgets are un-adopted and kept as history.
For how methods, manual entry and the balance sheet work, see the Forecasting guide.
Create Forecast Version
✕Forecast on picks the dimension a budget is built against.
In short
Tag it once at source, or at the chart of accounts. Slice it any way you need.
- Xero tracking categories and QuickBooks Classes and Locations become dimensions. A file import fills in the values of dimensions you create first. GL Lines gives you one from the chart of accounts for free.
- One primary dimension drives the standard reports. Split Dimensions puts a different one under each line.
- The Dimensions tab turns units into rows, columns or a matrix, and filters to the ones you want.
- No tags? Assign accounts to values in the chart of accounts.
- Budgets are built unit by unit on whichever dimension you choose. Only the primary one can be adopted.
More guides
Keep going
Performance
Financial History, Performance vs Plan, and building Report Formats.
Forecasting
Versions, the three ways a line gets its numbers, special lines, and why everything balances.
Documents
Getting the data right, blocks, your own calculations, AI text and the AI Assistant, saving, locking and exporting.
Workflows
Schedules, jobs and tasks, assignments and notifications, and where to see everything.
Non-Financial Indicators
Setting them up, entering them each month, reading, forecasting and reporting them.
Dashboards and the Scorecard
The Overview, the Companies list, the Scorecard's colours, and keeping them fresh.
All help guides
Every guide, grouped by what you are doing.
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